paulfromcamden
Baffled
Everyone upgraded from the classic Akai S1100 and Atari ST. Was all downhill from there : )
Music that could not have been made 20 years previously
- Thread starter Sloop John B
- Start date
Finnegan
It’s shite being Scottish!
I suppose The Beatles (and Elvis and The Stones) were innovative culturally, inasmuch as Brian Epstein and Col. Parker cleaned up ‘negro music’ and sold it to the white kids, while The Stones traded on a purer, more authentic facsimile.
I recall how dizzily excited we all became in the 1980’s when broadcasters like Charlie Gillet and Andy Kershaw began playing records by Mali’s Ali Farka Toure. Toure sounded uncannily similar to seminal US bluesman John Lee Hooker. Proof, it was cried, that the missing link back to ‘African blues’ had finally been disinterred. That was until it emerged that, like Bob Marley in Jamaica, Toure had tuned into US service radio stations where he encountered and fell in love with black American music.
So, yes, nothing new under the sun.
Tony L
Administrator
I feel I should drop Yeule in this thread for all manner of reasons, but I can’t decide on a track. As such go off and play both Glitch Princess and Softscars in their entirety. Do it now!
PS Two of the best albums of recent years IMHO.
PS Two of the best albums of recent years IMHO.
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The Captain
~~~~~~~~~~
I don't really understand the question tbh. And as a result I suspect it subsequently leaves the replies likely to be those simply wanting to tell others of how much new new music they buy, just typing lists within replies, rather than actually answering the question; IE (or AI-?) muso-boasting.
Why couldn't Mask have been made 20 years earlier-? they got their influence so obviously from nosferatu & other iconic gothic references from the past, & the equipment they used wasn't anything new 3 guys with guitars & amps (do you mean the delay effect they used-?? ). If you cite Mask as your one of three examples, out of all the albums ever made, I really don't get the question. Why Mask? Or do I even need to reply to your AI robot friend, instead of to you-?
Capt
Why couldn't Mask have been made 20 years earlier-? they got their influence so obviously from nosferatu & other iconic gothic references from the past, & the equipment they used wasn't anything new 3 guys with guitars & amps (do you mean the delay effect they used-?? ). If you cite Mask as your one of three examples, out of all the albums ever made, I really don't get the question. Why Mask? Or do I even need to reply to your AI robot friend, instead of to you-?
Capt
Sloop John B
And any old music will do…
I use mask and Jurassic as they were 2 albums generated from the 1001 albums you must listen to before you die list and the thought that I have tried to articulate in my question was framed. They really are 2 random albums that to me (and my knowledge of music) could not have existed 20 years earlier and I began to wonder has this 20 year rule (perception) had been broken in the past 20 years and if now what these new music is.
.sjb
Sloop John B
And any old music will do…
Some disconnected thoughts
1) The book Dilla Time makes a compelling case for J Dilla being the difference - developed in the last 1990s but - but his influence is now everywhere in the 2000s
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dilla-Time-Afterlife-Producer-Reinvented/dp/1800751745?tag=pinkfishmedia-21
The music could have been made before the mid 1990s but it would have sounded different.
If you've 20 minutes free ( and it takes while to get there.....)
In this podcast Nate Chinen places Dilla's innovations on a line through Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, James Brown....
Digging into 'Dilla Time,' and the legacy of a rhythm pioneer
Jazz United digs deep into the trailblazing rhythm legacy of hip-hop producer J Dilla — in conversation with Dan Charnas, author of an essential new book, 'Dilla Time.'www.wbgo.org
2) Frank Ocean's Blonde is another interesting case. It was released in a different form as Endless for one day before Blonde was released, and was , I think I'm right in saying, available for one day on vinyl then only available to download. It makes very creative use of things like autotune, spoken intermissions, blends hip hop, soul, rock, sampling. It's maybe my favourite new record of the last decade or so
I'm always blown away by this track even though I've played it hundreds of times. I'm not sure it could have come from 1995 but feel free to make the case.
3) From another angle, I recall re-reading ( but can't for the life of me remember where) that innovations in how we consume music have replaced innovations in music . In this article the ipod was being praised as in the cycle from from - Elvis > Beatles . Summer of love > punk > rave / electronic.
The walkman and CD led to longer records that were, in content, more of the same, and often recycling of older records in new formats. The i pod made that even more so and moved away from the primacy of the album, Spotify etc have again transformed how we consume the same thing and to some extent how records and music are made.
So there are lots of records being made now that we consume in different ways to in 1999 but I'm not sure anything revolutionary has happened to the music itself - except perhaps Dilla's beats?. The changes have become about what is in the mainstream ( way more black, female and queer artists) rather than the music. I think there are digital production sounds that place records in the last 10 or so years - the sound of St Vincent's records would be an example - but maybe not the content of the music.
Maybe there'a similar point about the way the live experience works. Taylor Swift could not have done what she's done with the eras tour in the last century - but the music could have easily been made then. Ditto Coldplay at Glastonbury last week.
That said, if you dare to put radio 1 on, the music is very different to what you would have heard in 1990 - things have evolved but maybe not radically changed (or, being of a certain age, got better)?
Very interesting, many thanks. My knowledge of what I’ll loosely call electronic music and hip-hop is alas akin to someone whose highlight musically of 1967 would have been Engelbert Humperdinck - well. Not quite that bad but I’m trying to articulate scenes passing me by.
I’ve ordered the Dilla book from the library so hopefully will in the not too distant future understand a bit more.
How music is consumed is an interesting point. I certainly don’t stick with something like I did when I put down a substantial bit of dosh on an LP. I feel “growers” have much less of a chance nowadays.
Off to check out Frank Ocean now.
.sjb
This site contains affiliate links for which pink fish media may be compensated.
The Captain
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@Sloop John B Apologies for asking again, but it is the essence of what I'm trying to understand; but why couldn't Mask, as your chosen example, have been made 20 years earlier-? (& therefore, why X album couldn't too).
I could reply saying Cher's I Belie-ee-ee-ve song's album (naturally on the tip of my tongue), because autotune hadn't been invented yet. Is it musical technology as to your thinking of in #1?
Capt
I could reply saying Cher's I Belie-ee-ee-ve song's album (naturally on the tip of my tongue), because autotune hadn't been invented yet. Is it musical technology as to your thinking of in #1?
Capt
Alex N
pfm Member
Yeah, those albums are best consumed whole, and while they can seem somehow familiar at times, they’re also really alien.
From Serotonin II, and made while still a Saint Martins (natch) undergraduate…
As for Frank Ocean, his albums often appear high up in best albums ever lists, and I’m sure undergrad dissertations have been written about the video for the other ‘Nikes’ that’s not on Blonde.
I got two versions…
Frank Ocean – Nikes (Music Video Version)
Mermaids, the devil, real-life angels, the Virgin Mary, twins, Lady Godiva, rain, glitter, young love, supercars, Fight Club, Stanley Kubrick, Black Swan, a party at the Moontower
genius.com
I mentioned Blackpink earlier as I was boasting, fr. As young Frank once said, Jennie, Jisoo, Rosé, and Lisa’s vibe is as fly as their rhymes, and all over the freshest trap beats.
DDU-DU DDU-DU…
For anyone who’s somehow escaped Blackpink’s tractor beam, I must warn you that theirs are the catchiest songs ever made.
Sloop John B
And any old music will do…
What I’m trying to articulate (obviously not very well) is that there wasn’t anything remotely like Mask released in 1961 and if someone said to me that mask was actually released in 1961 I’d reply that couldn’t be. I also don’t think there was anything sounding remotely like Jurassic 5’s album released in 1982.
It’s no big thesis and I must give some of the music recommend on this thread a listen and I might change my mind about the 20 years from 2004 to today as my thinking that there isn’t music that one would categorically state , well that couldn’t have been released in 2004 is most likely down to me not knowing too much about the music highlighted.
.sjb
The Captain
~~~~~~~~~~
@Sloop John B I think you're too intelligent for pfm John! If not, then you're definitely too intelligent to be recommended 'Blackpink' & other pop music manufactured for 15 year olds!
Therefore I recommend to someone like you obviously are, Elliott Smith, for no other reason than it's the very antithesis of gossamer-thin chart pop music: musically complex & often dark, like the great poets & lyricists often were/ are.
Capt
Therefore I recommend to someone like you obviously are, Elliott Smith, for no other reason than it's the very antithesis of gossamer-thin chart pop music: musically complex & often dark, like the great poets & lyricists often were/ are.
Capt
